


Rivers and Roads

by bashert



Category: The Newsroom (US TV)
Genre: AU, Angst, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-21
Updated: 2014-03-21
Packaged: 2018-01-16 12:25:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1347370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bashert/pseuds/bashert
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Second season-finale AU.</p>
<p>
  <i>This is not like last time. She's not sending herself away out of punishment or guilt. This time is different. She's gone because he fired her. </i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rivers and Roads

**Author's Note:**

> I've been playing this song a lot lately, and it was in my brain and then this came out. I'm sorry. The song is by The Head and The Heart.

_Nothin' is as it has been_  
 _And I miss your face like hell_  
 _And I guess it's just as well_  
 _But I miss your face like hell_  
  
 _Been talkin' 'bout the way things change_  
 _And my family lives in a different state_  
 _If you don't know what to make of this_  
 _Then we will not relate_  
 _So if you don't know what to make of this_  
 _Then we will not relate_  
  
 _Rivers and roads_  
 _Rivers and roads_  
 _Rivers 'til I reach you_ \- The Head and the Heart

* * *

His fingers itch to dial her number, but he always stops himself.

This is not like last time. She's not sending herself away out of punishment or guilt. This time is different. She's gone because he fired her.

He regretted that almost immediately, but Mac was gone by then. Out of the building, out of his life.  She handed off her headset to Don in the middle of the broadcast and slipped out before Will could stop her. She must have known that once he calmed down, he'd try to talk sense into her.

He pours himself another glass of scotch, and it’s so fucked up, all of it is so fucked up.

This time is different. So he can call her, he can try to get her to come home. Things are different.

His fingers hovers over her number, but in the end can’t do it.

She’s still trying to outrun sadness, so maybe things aren’t that different after all.

* * *

 Sloan knows where she is. He’s sure of it. He knows that he’ll know eventually. If she takes a job somewhere else, with some other network, he’ll know, and MacKenzie McHale can’t stay away from the news for too long. Of that he’s certain.

He pesters Sloan at first, and Jim, because Mac would never go anywhere and not let Jim know where she was going. He wonders if Jim offered to go with her. He knows he must have. Jim would follow her anywhere, but she must have told him to stay.

Will just hopes that wherever she retreated to this time is safe. He hopes that she stays away from war zones, picks somewhere safer. London or Atlanta. Somewhere safe.

He asks and asks and they both stonewall him, and he thinks about Mac asking about the voicemail over and over again, and knows that he’s been a total idiot.

“I just want to talk to her,” he begs, and Sloan shakes her head. She’s more sympathetic than Jim. Jim’s loyalty to Mac is fierce and unwavering. Will knows he’ll never break, but Sloan might.

“She doesn’t want to talk to you,” Sloan says, and it hurts, but he knows it’s true.

“I'll give her some time before I call," Will tries.

“She’s not coming back this time, Will,” Sloan tells him, her voice firm. “I think you need to accept that.”

He doesn’t sleep that night. He’s not sure what he thought, but he always assumed she'd come back. Come home.

He always thought she'd come home.

* * *

The staff isn't too happy with him. He knows that. They don't know all the details, but they think it's his fault that she's gone.

They're right.

Maggie's the only one that's not being subtly rude to him. He's not sure what he's done to earn her loyalty, but he doesn't think he deserves it.

* * *

Maggie knows where MacKenzie is too. That surprises him. They talk. 

That's what Maggie says.

"We talk," she shrugs.

"Where is she?" Will asks, and Maggie shakes her head.

"I can't." So apparently her loyalty to him doesn't stretch quite as far as he thought.

* * *

She calls him four weeks after he fires her. 

"Stop bothering everyone," she demands, and he's so fucking happy to hear her voice that he pays little attention to her words. "Leave them alone, seriously, Will."

"Where are you?" He asks.

"I think," he can hear her swallow, can picture her eyebrows sloping in a frown, misses her so badly that it aches. "I think it's better if you don't know that."

"I'm sorry," he tries. "I should have never have fired you."

"I wanted you to," she reminds him. "I goaded you into it. Don't feel guilty about this, Will."

"Please come home," he says.

"Don't," she pleads.

"Let me fix this," he begs.

"You can't," she says, and hangs up the phone.

* * *

It's Sloan that breaks. 

"You didn't hear it from me," she points her finger at Will, and he nods. "She's in Chicago."

"Why the fuck is she in Chicago?" He demands.

"Some old friend?" Sloan shrugs. "She's hiding out there for the moment. She's moving back to London. She got a job with the BBC, but she asked for a few months off before she started. To decompress." She grabs a pen and writes an address on a post-it note.

Her dad must have pulled some strings, Will thinks. Or maybe Charlie. Or maybe her reputation was strong enough that Genoa, her taking the fall for it all, only dented it.

"Thanks Sloan," he tells her, taking the address from where it dangled from the end of her fingers.

"You didn't hear it from me," she reminds him as he leaves her office, already mentally tallying up the miles between New York and Chicago, wondering if he can get a flight that night, calculating how quickly he can get to her.

* * *

A fucking snowstorm means that all the flights in and out of Chicago are grounded for the moment. 

"She'll still be there in a couple of days," Charlie reassures Will, but Will shakes his head. He doesn't know when she's going to leave for London, and the snow on the ground means that she's certainly not going in the next twenty-four hours, not by plane at least.

"I'm going to rent a car," Will decides, and Charlie, to his credit, just nods.

  
"Go get your Dulcinea," Charlie tells Will, toasting him with the glass of scotch he's drinking. "Bring our girl home."

* * *

He counts the miles markers to help calm himself down.

He's not sure what'll he's going to say to her when he gets there, but he knows he needs to get to her.

He drives all night.

He just needs to get to her.

* * *

The address is in a nice part of Chicago, and he remembers suddenly that it's Mac's childhood best friend that lives in Chicago. He doesn't let himself think about it too long, afraid he'll talk himself out of walking up to the door. 

He rings the bell, and the door flies open and the woman on the other side smirks at him. 

"MacKenzie! You have a guest," Iris calls into the house, and then turns back to Will. "Took you long enough."

"No one would tell me where she was!" Will tries to argue.

"Still, you're supposed to be part of the journalist elite," Iris chides. He's stopped from saying anything else by Mac's voice.

"Go home, Will," her words crisp, her hands coming to rest on her waist. 

"Mac, please," he starts. "I drove all night."

"You drove? Through that snow?" Iris looks impressed, MacKenzie looks remarkably unimpressed. 

"Please," he says again, and Mac deflates. She never could say no to him.

"Okay. Let's talk." He tries not to feel too victorious. 

* * *

He can't stop the words once they start spilling out of his mouth. 

Words like _love,_ and _always_ , and _you_. 

Mac asks what in the fuck is happening, and Will keeps talking.

"You own me," he says, and knows that as a truth. He's as certain about that as he is about anything. 

He knows that in his bones.

A physical law of the universe, he says.

And then,

"Will you marry me?"

Yes.

Improbably, she says yes.

It's his turn to gape at her, and then to propel his sluggish body into action and take her into his arms before she has time to think about it and change her mind.

* * *

"Come home," he says, pulling back slightly to look at her, memorize her face. She looks just as exhausted as she did in New York, and it breaks his heart. 

She bites her lip and finally, after what feels like way too long, nods.

"But what will I do? I can't just sit at home all day and eat fucking bon bons and be your little wife," Mac says. "No one will hire me in New York.'

"You have a job waiting for you at ACN," he tells her.

"You fired me from that job," she reminds him. He shakes his head.

"Charlie filed it under a leave of absence," he explains. "You're still the Executive Producer of _News Night_."

"What?" She's shocked, and to be honest, he had been too when Charlie told him.

Charlie, for his part, had simply shrugged.

"I always knew she'd come home," he said with a wink.

* * *

They leave from Chicago two hours later, her things in the back of his rental car, her hand firmly in his. 

She calls BBC on the drive and politely declines their job offer, and she can feel Will's grin as she hangs up the phone.

She also calls her parents, breaks the news that she won't be coming back to London after all, but that she's going to be married.

They're shocked into silence, and then Will can hear their exclamations coming down the line, and he grins again.

Actually, he 's not sure that he can _stop_ smiling.

"My dad wants to talk to you," Mac says, holding the phone up to his ear for him, her fingers brushing along his neck and sending shivers down his spine.

"Took you damn long enough," Ted McHale scolds. "Take care of her, William."

"I will, sir," he promises, and Mac tips her head to rest against his shoulder and he can feel the hot tears soak through his sweater. She says tearful goodbyes to her parents and then covers her face with her hands and weeps.

"You okay?" He asks, alarmed, afraid that she might have changed her mind.

"I'm just so happy," she breathes. "I'm just so damn happy."

* * *

Mac is greeted by applause when they step into the newsroom a couple of days later, and she blushes and ducks her head.

"I'm so glad you're back," Maggie beams, hugging Mac hard.

"You aren't angry with me for telling him where you were, are you?" Sloan asks, and Mac just shakes her head, with a slightly watery laugh.

* * *

It doesn't take long for them to find a rhythm at work. 

It takes slightly longer to find a rhythm at home. They have relearn each other. She isn't the same person she was six years ago. He isn't either.

She sleeps more lightly than she used to. He thinks that must be a souvenir from being embedded.

But some things are so familiar that it's like no time has passed at all. Her feet are still like blocks of ice when she slides into bed. Her morning routine is still the same, and she still steals most of the covers at night.

He remembers these things about her, _lets_ himself remember these things. Like how she likes her eggs, or that she doesn't like ricotta cheese or cilantro.

He remembers the noises she makes when they make love, the feel of her skin on his. It's the little things that add up to something that he's never come close to having with anyone else.

He whispers he loves her into her skin, and she twines their fingers together and ghosts a kiss across his knuckles.

She's home.

 


End file.
